A financial services firm may have a host computer in communication with a plurality of terminals that are distributed over a large area (e.g., nationwide). Such terminals are typically operated by agents so as to provide financial services to customers, such as money transfer transactions and preparation of negotiable instruments. The financial services firm may also send preprinted financial documents to the agents for use in preparing negotiable instruments requested by customers.
A problem associated with sending preprinted financial documents to an agent is that the financial services firm may not know whether the agent has received the documents. The financial documents could become lost, they could get into the wrong hands, or the agent could simply forget to inform the financial services firm that a particular shipment has been received. Obviously, many collateral problems may result from not knowing the whereabouts of a particular financial document shipment. If the shipment ends up in the wrong hands, for example, fraudulent money orders may be created, which could result in large financial losses for the financial services firm.
One solution for addressing the above-identified problem involves requesting the agent to sign and remit a confirmation receipt, such as a post-card, for the financial document shipment. While this solution is effective in most cases, it does not provide the financial services firm sufficient control over the agents to ensure timely remittance of an acknowledgment of receipt of inventory. Consequently, many shipments are sent to agents without confirmation that the shipments were actually received.
Therefore, there exists a need for a new and improved method and system for tracking status of inventory shipments, and for acknowledging receipt of such shipments at remote agent locations.